Walking in Their Shoes
Walking the same streets as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu was an experience I will never forget. Before reading their auto-biographies, I did not know a great deal of knowledge about either man, but I now view them as primary examples of differentiated leaders as we are studying this semester. Edwin Friedman describes the following description of a differentiated leader:
“I want to stress that by well-differentiated leader I do not mean an autocrat who tells others what to do or orders them around, although any leader who defines himself or herself clearly may be perceived that way by those who are not taking responsibility for their own emotional being and destiny. Rather, I mean someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals, and, therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. I mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected, and therefore can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence. I mean someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic reactivity of others, and therefore be able to take stands at the risk of displeasing.” [1]
The well-differentiated leader choses to accept the long road of the mission over quick fixes and trusts that perseverance, valuable relationships and consistency of vision will eventually triumph over the sabotage and fear she encounters along the way. Tutu and Mandela demonstrated this throughout their lives.
Their embodiment of leadership has inspired me greatly in two particular ways. 1) Both men recognized the unique time and place into which God placed them and said “yes,” to their Hero’s Journey. 2) TuTu and Mandela each had a clear vision of who they were called to lead and where they wanted to go. Desmond Tutu had three goals when he became Archbishop: to allow female ordination, to divide the Diocese of Cape Town into smaller units, and to see liberation of all South Africans, regardless of color. He saw the first goal met in 1992 and the last in 1994. Unfortunately, the Diocese of Cape Town was never divided. [2] Likewise, Nelson Mandela was so dedicated to his leadership of the ANC and abolishment of apartheid that he endured four trials and 27 years in prison because of it. Even as a prisoner at Robben Island, Mandela did not waiver from his vision. He recalled that “Robben Island was known as the University because of what we learned from eac hother…Our university grew up partly out of necessity. As young men came to the island, we realized that they knew very little about the history of the ANC.” [3] He used prison to continue his quest.
A phrase that I found repeating itself as I explored the leadership journeys of these two men was speak truth to power. In order to do that in situations like they found themselves takes extraordinary courage and resilience. They were speaking the truth in love and yet being consistent in their pursuit of their vision. As with any leader’s journey this type of pursuit of truth and justice does not come without danger, frustration and loss. Each man prioritized their mission above themselves and that is a unique in and of itself. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to visit Robben Island and the Tutu museum. What an extraordinary way to the legacy of their lives and leadership live on.
[1] Edwin H. Friedman and Peter Steinke, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (10th Anniversary, Revised Edition) (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2017), 15–16.
[2] Desmond Tutu, “No Future without Forgiveness” (New York, N.Y: Doubleday, 2000), 12.
[3] Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” (New York: Flash Point/Roaring Brook Press, 2009), 467.
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